Tales of The Devil

Three stories from Something Awful user Angry Diplomat about their exploits as a mischief-maker named The Devil, dating back to the old school days of kelotane, poo, pee, jenkem (a drug made with pee), and a research system for robotics. Don't try to act like The Devil and re-enact his antics unless you're an Antagonist or someone explicitly gave consent to have it happen to themselves.

Don't accept drinks from The Devil

I played a few rounds as a Bartender named The Devil, with a huge black beard and glowing red eyes. I would start the round by taking several pills of Kelotane (a drug that cures burn damage over time), drinking a bunch of welding fuel, returning to the bar, and setting myself on fire. This produced a large but short-lived cloud of flame around me, giving most of the bar an ominously scorched appearance, and it allowed me keep burning for an extremely long period of time.

Because of the Kelotane in my system, the fire wouldn't actually hurt me; I could just stand around, blazing like a fucking bonfire, chatting amiably with people as they tried to decide whether to order drinks or run for a fire extinguisher. So, when a crewmember walked into the bar, he would discover a charred hellhole staffed by a flame-wreathed, red-eyed man named The Devil. A surprising number of people decided to order drinks anyway.

Now, I figure The Devil knows how to throw a fucking party. He doesn't just chuck a case of beer on the counter and call it quits, right? So whenever someone ordered a drink, I would mix together some hard liquor (usually vodka and rum), spritz in some welding fuel, and use a syringe to transfer some of my own blood to the glass, creating an unholy devilblood cocktail. Occasionally I would poo and pee in the glass as well, adding Jenkem to the list of Terrible Things Nobody Should Drink that were in the concoction.

Despite the fact that I did all of this gross shit in plain sight, just about everybody would take the damn thing and drink it anyway. Contrary to common sense, drinking that horrible sludge didn't really have any major negative effects, aside from moderate drunkenness and perhaps a mild Jenkem addiction. What's significant is that the welding fuel would remain in the imbiber's system for a while - and, party animal that he was, The Devil didn't skimp on the welding fuel.

Most rounds, this all amounted to nothing more than an overeager assistant spraying me with an extinguisher, putting out my hellfire, and incurring the wrath of Satan. But on one fateful round, the Botanist left a shitload of weed in the bar for everyone to enjoy. Paper was found, joints were rolled, someone produced an igniter, and then it was time to spark up.

The bar turned into a fucking inferno. Some of the crew stopped, dropped, and rolled like sensible people, while others tried to flee in a drunken fiery panic, which was hilarious to watch because the really drunk ones had scrambled controls and would stagger around in random directions while screaming "Ooooohhhh ggggoooodddd!!" Throughout all of this, The Devil stood at his bar, unharmed by the omnipresent cloud of fire, and laughed uproariously while mainlining vodka.

I don't think anybody died, but some people probably came close. Things just got funnier later on, as Engineering failed to do its job and the station's power went out of whack. Power surges caused lights to explode, and the drinkers who'd left before the fire got hit by the sparks, had the fuel still in their bodies ignite, and promptly immolated their surroundings while screaming in uncomprehending terror. It was Hell on Earth. It was also, to be honest, completely hysterical.

I don't do that anymore, partly because it's kind of a dick move, partly because it gets old fast, and partly because an admin got pretty annoyed with me (but he was cool enough to settle for my promise not to do it anymore). Even so, though, I'll be damned if it wasn't some of the funniest shit I'd ever seen.

Don't accept medical treatment from The Devil: diabolic possession for fun and profit

There used to be an SS13 job called the Head Surgeon, which entailed being in charge of Medbay, the Robotics lab, and the Genetics lab. Roboticists can remove brains from people and put them into robot bodies, creating cyborgs; for this reason, there are usually a couple of Assistants hanging out at the Robotics door, begging to be "borged" so they can be cool robot mans instead of shitty greysuits.

Unbeknownst to many, brains can also be put into different bodies. This really doesn't give you anything except a dead dude with some other dude's brain in his head. However, if you bring that body back to life in some way (either using the Genetics lab to clone it, or using a particular complicated chemical mix to resurrect it with a chance of making it gib instead), the player that controls the new clone is determined by the brain - so you've got Joe Schmoe running around in John Q. Public's body.

The Devil did not go to med school to save lives. He did not study and slave just so he could collect a fat paycheque. The Devil practices medicine because he loves to indulge his scientific curiosity (and because he likes the colour red).

My early forays into brain transplantation went rather well. After a few misfires (the Robotics lab was full of blood, gibs, discarded brains, and rotting bodies with empty skulls), I finally got the hang of it and went looking for a likely victim volunteer. As luck would have it, I found a dead Quartermaster lying around in Medbay, and the body was fresh! I dragged him back to my operating table and excitedly pulled out his brain. Then I plugged it into another relatively intact body I had lying around, slapped the corpse into the cloning tube, and... discovered that he couldn't be cloned because the player had logged out. Fuck!

My appointed lab assistant, a delightfully amoral Engineer with a suspiciously firm grasp of brain surgery, saw a silver lining. He laid out the plan, and before long it was The Devil's turn to lie on the operating table. A few snips later and a brand spanking new Quartermaster was stepping out of the cloning pod, naked as a jaybird and healthy as a horse.

A Quartermaster with The Devil's brain. A Quartermaster who was literally The Devil in disguise.

It took less than three minutes for me to completely embezzle the station's entire Cargo budget and funnel it straight into Robotics research. None of the other Quartermasters batted an eye when they saw their coworker walk in and start using the Cargo Bay computer. They sure did yell a lot when they saw that big fat 0 though. I just quietly continued my experiments while my Roboticist lackeys gleefully spent their vast fortune to research nicer cyborg upgrades. Science is its own reward~

Don't accept medical treatment from The Devil: in space, no one can hear you file a malpractice claim

In a later round, I was eager to continue my highly unethical (read: highly hilarious) work. I promptly shuffled off to Robotics, prepped my surgical tools, and walked to the door to look for vict- oh hey an Assistant! What's up, little guy? You want to be borged? Hmm, I do need someone to donate a brain for a little experiment I'm planning. No, I promise I won't throw your brain in the garbage; you will be alive at the end of this. Yes, I know you want to be a Security cyborg - trust me, you will have a totally new lease on life by the end of this! Step into my office...

Idiot brain in hand, I hurried off to Genetics and grabbed a monkey. Previous tests had proven that it was not possible to resurrect monkeys with human brains, which saddened me, but I had a different objective in mind this time around. I dragged the monkey over to the genetic engineering console, put it into the pod, and used my ~mad science~ knowhow to... improve it. Yes, a beautiful new human body for my eager test subject.

He was not very happy to be revived as a black woman with Justin Bieber hair and a randomized name.

After a lengthy tantrum and a minor physical altercation, I calmed my volunteer down by promising to fix the problem. If she would just step into the genetics pod, it would be quite simple for me to make a few little changes that would resolve her complaints. Mollified, the grumbling lass hopped into the pod, which I promptly locked before randomly rolling my face across the keyboard of the genetics computer, bombarding the subject with mutations willy-nilly for a short time. I unlocked the pod and proudly invited my volunteer to step out and survey the changes.

"FUCK" screamed the black woman, falling to the ground and spasming madly, "What the fuck did you do to me? PISS."

"Interesting," said The Devil, consulting his medical scanner. "It would appear that you are suffering from epilepsy and Tourette's Syndrome."

"COCK!" asserted the woman. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

This drew a frown. "That is not very polite, madam. I was enjoying our professional relationship, but if you are going to behave in this way, I must ask you to leave. I will simply have to find another assistant."

And that is why an insane homeless epileptic uncontrollably cursing naked black woman spent the rest of the round trying to convince anyone who'd listen that The Devil had stolen her identity.

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